Simms is clearly very passionate about geology. Fieldtrip for the course was fun. Make sure to put in effort into the two assignments as they account for your entire grade. Otherwise, there is no work outside of class. Lecture was interesting!

90% percent of the grade is based on only TWO HWs..... No rubric was provided for the hw........I love the course design, and I love the field trip, but only two homework decided our final grade, and sometimes the reason to lose points is weird...

The mandatory field trip was fun and tough, but 90% of the grading was just based on one homework and a presentation which both were given insufficient information about the grading criteria. It's overall an interesting course though.

camping trip is mandatory, and a respected professor with lots of experience, but he is a harsh grader and is unclear about what he wants (no rubric for guidance). there were two things in the grade book each worth 50% of your grade. but very knowledgeable and passionate about what he teaches. he is also very willing to help.

Alexander Simms is a teacher who is passionate about his topics and gives personal examples of what he is teaching. However, he is very hard to follow during lecture missing a lecture means you won't understand anything from that day since the slides are mostly pics, and he doesn't record any of them. Midterm and Final are ridiculously hard too.

A professor who loves what he teaches. His lectures aren't boring but the midterm/final is a lot of memorization of vocab. Labs are fun and straightforward.

Professor Simms is awesome! He makes his lectures so fun and actually something the students look forward to. Although the material can get boring at times he finds a way to spice things up. There are literally 2 homework assignments ever, like come on. Section attendance is mandatory and midterm/final is decent with no curveballs. Solid pick.

It wasn't interesting. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and blame covid since we are barely going back in person, but his lectures were so BORING especially for an 8am class. The labs were okay, you need to take notes and attend lecture because he doesn't have a textbook and has very un-descriptive powerpoint slides !

Professor Simms seems like a really cool person and I enjoy his class however I wish his lectures were a little more engaging as I started to have a hard time paying attention and being motivated to go to class even as somebody who wants to research in Antarctica. Its definitely important to attend his lectures

Prof. Simms was great for this class. He shared a lot of personal stories with his work and made material relevant for today. There were two virtual field trip assignments (writing), a 10 min presentation, and one 1000 word paper on a topic you pick related to the course. No outside reading, extra credit was offered!

Weekly quizzes for lab and lecture each, 2 very easy short writing assignments and a final. Drops a lecture quiz and a lab quiz. Lecture quizzes based entirely on the lecture (no book) lab quizzes are not hard either. Show up to lecture and the A should be pretty easy

Professor Simms is a really great guy and he does care about students. he would answer every question if you are confused and upload slides too. all the lectures are recorded and section too, nice for international student. weekly pop quiz, no midterm, and the final are fair. go to the lecture and take note of you would be fine.